


so a witch and a ghost walk into a bar

by TheNightbloodSolution



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Bellamy's got a few problems, Clarke helps, Clarke is a modern witch, F/M, Ghosts, I didn't intend to release this around October-ish it just kind of happened?, Witches, they're both terribly cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 19:23:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16125089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNightbloodSolution/pseuds/TheNightbloodSolution
Summary: Dating as a modern witch isn’t easy per say.With mortals there’s the whole thing of “when is the right time to admit you’re magical?” And even in a good relationship there’s a large chance they don’t take the news well. Back in the burning times, you could just incant yourself away from the pyre and start in a new town with people none the wiser that you’d already been accused. But these days, you get a partner taking to twitter and accusing you of witchcraft, and then you have to use a time travel spell and undo the whole situation and it’s really just a lot.or the one where Clarke is a witch, Bellamy gets into some trouble, and Clarke has to help him out.





	so a witch and a ghost walk into a bar

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest thing I've ever written and posted on here, so hey! That's exciting. I got this idea and (as per usual) couldn't let it go, so here's the Witch AU no one asked for, that's kind of a blend of every witch show I've ever seen. 
> 
> Big shoutout to talistheintrovert for proofreading it for me and coming up with the title, which I had no idea for. <3

Dating as a modern witch isn’t _easy_ per say.

With mortals there’s the whole thing of “when is the right time to admit you’re magical?” And even in a good relationship there’s a large chance they don’t take the news well. Back in the burning times, you could just incant yourself away from the pyre and start in a new town with people none the wiser that you’d already been accused. But these days, you get a partner taking to twitter and accusing you of witchcraft, and then you have to use a time travel spell and undo the whole situation and it’s really just a lot.

And then with dating witches you can never be quite sure where they fall on the good witch/bad witch divide. You can assume they’re a good witch, but then sexting turns into hexing and you have to have your coven come undo the curse on a Tuesday night when you really should’ve been on the night shift but instead you’ve been transformed into a bat.

That’s why Clarke does casual. That’s also how Clarke ends up here, on the receiving end of some of the worst oral she’s had in her entire life. She throws out a time stopping incantation under the guise of moaning and sighs when she sees him freeze.

She reaches over for her cell and hits the first number on her recents.

“Hello?” Raven answers.

“Oh, thank god. I need some advice,” Clarke says. “How do you tell a guy he’s just… really bad at sex?”

“Clarke Griffin, are you _seeing someone_?”

Clarke shifts uncomfortably, “No, I’m just kind of… in the middle and he’s really, really misguided.”

“In the middle?”

“…Yes.”

“You froze him?”

“Well, obviously.”

She can hear Raven sigh on the other end. “Witch or mortal?”

“Mortal! A witch would know if I used a time-freezing incantation on him.”

“You know, you wouldn’t have this problem if you found a real relationship instead of hopping in bed with anyone with a pulse.” It wasn’t a judgment on the amount of sex she was having, Clarke knew, but a nudge for Clarke to put herself back out there. To date again.

“Well, we can’t all fall in love with members of our coven, can we?” Clarke replies, voice dripping in sarcasm. “If you’re not going to help me, I’m hanging up on you.”

Raven does end up giving her a range of suggestions, starting with “get up and just leave” and ending with “unfreeze him and tell him you have a dentist appointment.” Clarke doesn’t use any of her suggestions.

* * *

 

When Clarke gets back to the loft she shares with Raven and Wells, the only two members of her coven, she whacks them both on the head, interrupting their cuddling and Queer Eye binging.

“Ow?” Wells says, more a question than an exclamation.

“Ask your girlfriend,” Clarke says as she plops down next to them on their worn green couch.

“Clarke is salty because she doesn’t have a man,” Raven supplies, then adds, “Or woman.”

“That is _not_ why I’m salty.” Clarke glares at her best friend. “I’m salty because I called for advice and-”

“Sex advice,” Raven cuts her off to clarify.

Wells interjects before Clarke can get going and says, “I don’t want to know.”

Which is fair, because Clarke and Wells have been friends since they were kids. Hearing about each other’s sex lives is kind of awkward when someone’s been like a brother since the age of four. But still, she has to listen to Raven chat about his sex life all the time, so really shouldn’t it go vice versa?

Still, Clarke quiets and snuggles into her groove on the couch, the one on the left corner that she’s been cultivating for years. Only once she’s lulled into a false sense of security by one of Karamo’s motivational talks does Raven pipe up again.

“I just don’t see why you won’t date,” she says, keeping her eyes trained on the television as she says it.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “You know why. Last time I had a boyfriend, we had to erase a whole day from this timeline because he tweeted a video of me levitating. I’m not doing that again.”

“What about witches?”

“Please, you can’t trust a witch.”

“You’re a witch. I’m a witch. Wells is a witch.”

“You know I meant outside your coven.”

Raven mutes the television and Wells pouts a little, but they both turn to focus on Clarke.

“Not everyone is Lexa, Clarke,” Wells says, backing his girlfriend. “And there are people who are interested. You know Niylah wouldn’t shut up about you last Walpurgis night.”

“And Niylah is Lexa’s friend; she’d probably turn me into a guinea pig.” Clarke wedges herself out from her couch groove, gives her well-meaning friends a pointed look, and walks out of the room.

If there’s one thing Clarke Griffin is not looking for, it’s a relationship.

* * *

 

All witches can perform simple incantations and brew potions as long as they have a spellbook, a competent understanding of spells, and well, magic. A time-stop spell or an instant-hygiene potion is easy enough to do for any witch. But witches also have specialties, powers that are uniquely theirs.

For certain witches, those powers tend to channel passive energies, like Raven’s power of premonition. She sees the future, but the future’s always changing, so she doesn’t have to intervene in it. Once, she saw Clarke burn down the loft while making pasta, but with a simple phone call, she rerouted the timeline. But Raven doesn’t _choose_ what she has premonitions of, they simply come to her sporadically, triggered by a person or an object. She isn’t meant to stop or change the future she sees, so for the most part, she leaves things alone, content to see things before they happen.

Other witches, like Wells, have more active powers. Wells is a telekinetic witch; he can move just about every object with his mind. It’s a great power for active dueling, but it’s not the seventeenth century anymore and he’s _Wells_ , so he usually doesn’t have anybody to duel. As little as Raven interacts with her main power, Wells uses his for little more than moving the salt across the dinner table with a grin.

Clarke, without a doubt, uses her power the most. She too has an active power: healing. And if she doesn’t use it, well, she’s just kind of a jackass.

That’s why she works at the hospital, to use her powers on those who are beyond hope.

She is a medically trained doctor, mind you, but when people are beyond repair, sometimes Clarke intervenes and gives them their second shot at life.

She’s always been slightly jealous of her friend’s powers, the way they don’t have to hold life and death in their hands. Because she can’t save everyone. The Spirits told her as much.

The Spirits guide witches via Ouija board (every real coven has one). No one really knows what the Spirits are; god? Dead witches? Raven thinks they’re ancestors of the coven. Wells thinks the Spirits are some sort of all-knowing protector of the universe. Clarke doesn’t have a clue. What they do know is that the Spirits guide them on how to use their powers. And Clarke’s specifically comes with a limit: she can only heal seven times a week, and it seems like an arbitrary number, but Clarke’s never once dared go over it.

The last person she saw disregard the advice of the Spirits… didn’t end well. (Lexa’s power was animal transfiguration, but the Spirits advised her to never use it for vengeance. The next day, Lexa had four legs and a tail. Needless to say, Clarke took the Spirits pretty seriously.)

So, Clarke heals seven people a week, when their injuries are too far gone. And sometimes, she has to let people go. Sometimes, she has to pick which person to save. The young girl or the old woman? The man with a daughter or the college student? She dreads it, but it’s better than saving no one at all.

“Dr. Griffin!” Jackson calls out to her right as she scrubs in. “We need you in Room 22.”

Hectic. That’s how she’d describe her work. She deals with a lot of patients in the ER with a lot of different problems. There are broken bones and careless injuries and bloody faces and a woman who needs a catheter put in, but nothing fatal.

On her break, she breathes a sigh of relief as she stares in the bathroom mirror. A small smile graces her face as she looks at the pink streak in her hair (courtesy of Raven and an incantation gone awry). Three more hours. She can do three more hours. She’s reached her quota of healing this week, all in a day after a particularly nasty fire, but she only has to make it three more hours and the reset will happen. She can save again.

He comes in two hours before the reset.

“Car accident,” Jackson tells her. “Blood loss is significant.” It’s a nice way of saying he’s almost irreparable. Almost.

She can save him. She shouldn’t save him.

His eyes flutter open just for a second and meet hers. Clarke expects his deep brown eyes to express fear, but she only recognizes one emotion in his eyes: hope.

She tries to save him with her scalpel, god, she tries. But the blood loss is, as Jackson said, significant.

Her heart pulls her to reach out for his chest, to heal with a touch, more than usual. She’s lost patients before; it’s nothing new, but as she takes deep breaths she can see his hopeful eyes staring back at her, even though they’re beginning to flutter shut. All she can think of are his brown eyes.

So, she does what she was born to do. For the eighth time that week, she heals.

* * *

 

When Clarke opens her eyes the next morning, she realizes three things, in a very particular order.

The first thing she notices is that her eyes don’t really want to open. She’s never been a morning person, and though God knows it isn’t even early, not with the time she went to sleep last night, her eyes feel like they have ten-pound weights attached to them. Her eyes open slowly, inch by inch, fighting against the strength of the weights made solely of her exhaustion.

The second thing she notices is that there isn’t any light. She leaves her blinds open every night, to let in the fresh air and so that the morning light wakes her in the morning.

The third thing she notices is that there’s a face right in front of her; tanned skin and a patchy beard and eyes. _Oh_. She knows those eyes.

She shrieks and has to cover her own mouth so that Wells and Raven don’t come rushing up to her room.

“What are you doing here?” She hisses at the man from just last night.

He takes a step back and straightens his spine so that he isn’t bending over her anymore. Only as he walks back does Clarke realize just how close his face was to hers. He was so close, she should have felt his breath. An involuntary flush paints Clarke’s skin.

“I don’t know,” He admits, voice low and coarse. “I just woke up here, and I haven’t been able to get the door to budge.” He glances over at her dark, cherry wood door and Clarke follows his gaze. Her door locks from the inside, though, not the out.

Clarke extricates herself from her sheets and walks over to the door, which easily unlocks and opens.

The man looks surprised, but not unhappy, and moves toward the door, but she slams it and blocks him before he can get by.

“What the hell?”

“You don’t know how you got here.”

“No, but apparently you’re holding me hostage now?” His voice is climbing in volume and Clarke prays Raven and Wells can’t overhear.

Clarke knows a few facts for sure. She knows she healed him last night. She knows she technically wasn’t supposed to. She knows that for all she’d magicked back to order, he should still be a bit beaten and bruised. She knows that standing in front of her, he doesn’t look it. She knows his throat was somewhat crushed in the accident, and his vocal chords post-healing should be stiff, like his voice is out of practice and he’s learning to use it again. She knows that as he yells at her in her very own bedroom, his voice sounds as strong as it has probably ever been.

So, she focuses on what she doesn’t know. “What’s your name?”

“Why should I tell you?” He crosses his arms over his chest, and if his arms didn’t look like they were made of bricks and his face wasn’t adorned with a telling beard, the pout he shot her way may have convinced her that he was a child.

“Because I need to know if you remember it.”

He pausez before admitting, “Bellamy. Bellamy Blake.”

_Bellamy_. It’s an odd name, strangely beautiful, and she has no way of knowing if it’s right or wrong, but she just hopes he wouldn’t lie to her.

Here comes the real test. “Bellamy,” His name sounds strange on her tongue. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

His face strains as he grasps for memories.

After about a minute, he responds, “I… I was coming home from a faculty meeting that ran late after school. And I was driving home, no wait- I stopped for food to bring home for dinner and then I was driving home and then I woke up here.”

“So, you don’t remember getting home? Or anything else that might have happened?”

“No…” His voice trails off.

A horrible feeling hits Clarke in the gut.

She grabs the closest thing to her, a dusty copy of _Jane Eyre_ sitting on her dresser, not having seen a night of use since the household pitched in to subscribe to Netflix.

“I’m sorry about this,” Clarke says. Her arm hesitates only a moment before she chucks the worn book at the man standing across from her.

It flies straight through his stomach.

“What the _fuck_?” Bellamy screeches, at first glaring at Clarke before realization washes over his face. “Did a book just… fly through me?”

Clarke nods slowly before she reaches her hand behind her to grasp the doorknob.

Thoughts frantically flood Clarke’s mind: She has a ghost in her room. Her healing didn’t work. She didn’t save him. Bellamy Blake is dead.

Clarke opens the door just wide enough to shout for Wells and Raven to come upstairs, but Bellamy doesn’t look as though he’s going to make a break for it anyway. He’s sitting on her bed, or hovering slightly above it, since the bed doesn’t indent under his nonexistent weight and staring down at his clasped hands.

“What is it?” Raven asks, sounding exasperated as she eyes Clarke through the crack between the doorway and the slightly opened door.

“Is Wells there, too?”

“Present!” Wells’s voice calls from where can’t see, presumably behind Raven.

She takes a deep breath and fully opens the door before casting her gaze to the ground.

“What?” Raven asks. Wells sidles up next to her.

“Raven, don’t be dumb, she… cleaned her room?” He states, but it ends up sounding like more of a question.

Clarke glances over to where the man she couldn’t save, her biggest failure, her- where _Bellamy_ is sitting. Hovering. He’s still there, but-

“You can’t see him?” Clarke asks her friends.

“See who?” Raven responds.

“The man. On my bed. The ghost.”

“There’s a ghost on your bed?” Wells says at the exact time Raven goes, “Did you summon James Dean back from the dead again?”

“No,” Clarke hisses, and the faded blush she had at Bellamy’s original proximity returns to her face. “I’m serious. There’s a ghost on my bed and his name is Bellamy.” She launches into her story, starting with the hospital.

Everyone interjects with their own questions. Raven asks what Bellamy looks like. Wells asks if she really used her healing power past its limits. Bellamy asks her if she really tried to save him. When she responds to him, Wells and Raven exchange quizzical looks.

“What do I do?” Clarke asks, semi-pleading, when she finishes her story.

“Maybe you can see him because you need to help him move on?” Raven offers.

Bellamy’s face sours at that comment.

Wells is silent for a spell before he offers his advice. “I think you need to go to the hospital. See if you can find the body. That way we’ll be able to tell if he actually healed when you tried to fix him or if the damage reverted after you left the hospital. And you should bring Raven with you, in case she can get a premonition about what we should do.”

_A sensible plan_ , Clarke thinks, _when nothing is making sense_. Something neither Wells or Raven were willing to admit was that disregarding the advice of the Spirits comes with a consequence. Maybe that’s why she could see Bellamy. Or maybe Bellamy dying was the consequence. _Oh God, did she kill him?_

She glances over at Bellamy, the real victim of this whole scenario. “Do you mind if we try to find you?” She asks, as gently as she can.

She expects his voice to waver, for him to be broken, or shock-laced, or in denial.

But his voice is strong when he says, “I need to know what happened.”

* * *

 

Bree, the receptionist, is typing away at her desk when Clarke and Raven (and Bellamy, in spirit, of course) arrive.

“Bree, I operated on a man last night, a John Doe,” Clarke tells the receptionist, thinking out how to phrase it so that it doesn’t seem like she knows he’s already dead. “He came in after a-”

A shout from across the waiting room overtakes her own conversational voice.

“I don’t care, I want to talk to her!” The shout comes from a dark-haired woman, clad in black leather and sporting smudged mascara.

Jackson argues with her. “She’s off the clock right now, and as I’ve said, there’s nothing further she can do, Ms. Blake. Dr. Griffin already worked a miracle, it’s astounding he even made it through the trauma of the accident.”

Bellamy’s head whips over at the word “Blake.”

Awe overtakes his face. “Octavia,” He whispers to himself. Then to Clarke, “That’s my sister.”

She doesn’t waste a second in striding over to Jackson, Raven hot on her tails.

“Dr. Griffin!” He exclaims, as she places a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. “You aren’t supposed to be in today and definitely not at this hour.”

Her name grabs the brunette’s attention. “You’re Dr. Griffin?” She asks, though she already knows the answer to that question. Her gaze is an appraisal, one Clarke gets a lot. Being a doctor, combined with being this young always gets her a second look, and often gets her chastised for not being old enough to be ready for this profession. Octavia’s gaze is calculating, but not malicious.

“Yes, I worked on your brother last night.” She turns to Jackson. “What’s his current condition?”

Jackson’s brow furrows, but he responds, “When we went into take his vitals last night after you left, he crashed. After you operated he looked like he was apt for a full recovery, but now he’s unresponsive. He’s in a coma.”

“Which room is he in?” Clarke asks, and begins a fast stride in its direction after Jackson gives her the number.

She knows Raven is following and Octavia is too, but she doesn’t look back. Bellamy is behind her too, and she doesn’t want to see the journey his face gives away now that they know he’s alive. Her own head is too jumbled up to piece it together.

When she sees the body, Clarke knows her healing worked. None of the wounds had reverted, he’s still slightly bruised, but he’s healed. She hadn’t failed. The only thing wrong was that his eyes were fastened shut.

“Well?” Octavia asks, as Clarke continues to stare. “What’s wrong with him?”

Bellamy Blake is alive.

Her gaze doesn’t meet fierce, green eyes, but the brown ones of the man standing right behind Octavia.

“I don’t know,” she admits, little more than a whisper.

Bellamy Blake is alive, and she doesn’t know how to save him.

* * *

 

She runs a few tests for Octavia’s sake, but it’s nothing the other doctors haven’t already done. By all medical means, after last night’s recovery, Bellamy’s coma is inexplicable.

But the means aren’t medical, they’re magical.

That’s how Clarke ends up directly outside Bellamy Blake’s hospital room with his little sister, as Raven stays inside, touching everything she can in hopes of triggering a premonition.

Clarke explains it to Octavia that Raven is involved in alternative healing, and that she needs a completely free space to do her treatments.

“You really believe in this stuff?” Octavia asks, incredulity in her voice.

Clarke pastes a smile on her face. “It’s been proven that these alternative methods can have medical effects. And they’ve definitely never made anything worse.”

Octavia nods.

When the silence feels like its descending into awkward territory, Clarke blurts out what she’s meant to since she saw the brunette. “I’m sorry. About your brother.”

It’s her fault that he’s in the coma, her fault that he’s only feet away from his sister but he can’t touch her, or comfort her, her fault. Another part of her brain rationalizes that if Clarke hadn’t healed him, he’d be dead anyway.

Her own mind’s war is interrupted by Octavia’s statement. “You did your best. At least, that’s what the other doctors were telling me.”

The tears that start spilling from Octavia’s eyes don’t shock Clarke. She’s been a doctor for a while and crying family members are part of the job. What’s new is Bellamy, shell-shocked, standing right behind her, watching his sister mourn him when he’s right there.

“I’m sorry,” Octavia chokes out, “I’m not a crier, I just-” She pauses, staining her shirt as she wipes at the falling mascara-tears. “He’s all I have left. My boyfriend died last year and Bellamy tried to be there for me and I _pushed him away_. I can’t even remember the last thing I said to him, but I know we were arguing.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Clarke rubs the sobbing girl’s arm in a way she hopes is comforting. “Honestly? That whole last words thing? No one’s are ever really good.” Clarke’s lips form a half-smile, the one only nostalgia can bring on. “I think the last actual conversation I had with my dad, I asked him to stop by the drug store on the way home and buy me some poster board and he said okay or yeah or something. But I like to think of my last happy memory with him. We were at the beach and I didn’t want to get my hair wet because I knew it would take forever to dry and he told me that if I didn’t dunk my head under, I hadn’t really gone swimming at all. You just need to pick the last moment that you want to remember. And hopefully with Bellamy, you won’t need it.”

“Shit,” Octavia replies. “Are you a therapist, too?”

Raven barges out of Bellamy’s room with a pointed look at Clarke before turning to Octavia. “I’ve cleansed him, and I hope it assists in his recovery.”

Octavia nods in response.

“I have to go, Octavia, it’s not my shift, but I’ll ask the staff to notify me if Bellamy’s condition changes.”

As the trio that walked into the hospital (two living, one semi-ghost), walks back out, Clarke notices Bellamy’s head stray backwards and eye his teary-eyed sister one last time before he walks out the door.

* * *

 

Raven’s got a lot of patented expressions. The don’t-eat-my-food expression. The Wells-and-I-are-having-a-date-night-so-find-somewhere-else-to-stay-for-the-night expression. The holy-shit-I-think-I-just-came-up-with-the-next-great-invention expression. The my-potion-exploded-all-over-the-kitchen-please-don’t-kill-me-I-conjured-up-some-cookies-to-make-up-for-it expression.

They’re all different from the one she’s giving Clarke right now, the I-had-a-premonition expression. Her eyebrows are furrowed just the slightest bit, and her mouth is downturned only a little. The look resembles that of someone who’s only _slightly_ constipated.

“What did you see?” Clarke asks, before Raven can admit to seeing anything.

“It’s not great,” She sighs. “I touched a lot of stuff around the room but all I got something from was the bed. I saw you,” She looks at Clarke pauses, “crying by the bedside. Bellamy was in the bed, but he looked just like he did just now, so he could still be comatose or he could be…” She trails off, not wanting to say what everyone in Clarke’s compact car was thinking. “Anyway, when you quit crying, there was this huge flash of white light, and that’s where my premonition ended.”

Before Clarke respond with much of anything, Bellamy chimes in, “That’s it? That’s your power?” He directs at Raven, who can’t hear him. Frustrated, he turns to Clarke. “You’re these magical, powerful,” he pauses and contemplates, “what even are you? Fairies? Angels?”

“Witches,” Clarke clarifies, leaving Raven hanging and indulging Bellamy’s conversation.

“You’re these powerful _witches_ and that’s all your magic does. That didn’t tell us anything except that I might die, which we fucking knew anyway.”

“I know this is hard, Bellamy, but-”

“No!” He shouts. “You’re not the one in a coma, you don’t know.”

He’s completely noncorporeal, he can’t feel anything, but Clarke repeats the motion she did with his sister and rubs his arm slowly. It’s like stroking air, but his face slowly twists out of its angry contortion.

“If we want to save you at all, we have to figure this out, Bellamy.”

Clarke turns back to Raven, who is simply raising an eyebrow at her.

“We should go back home.” Clarke sighs. “We need to contact the Spirits.”

This whole situation is a mess, but it’s her mess, and she’s going to fix it. Clarke Griffin will save Bellamy Blake.

* * *

 

Raven likes to say chanting is an art form. A skill you hone. You aren’t just born with the ability to chant, just like you aren’t born to perform incantations. You need to practice. Clarke isn’t so sure. She’s never actually failed at chanting before, and there’s no way to improve. It’s just spewing out syllables, lots of “ah”s and “ooh”s and the occasional tongue pop.

Wells’s deep voice mixes with her alto and Raven’s soprano as they chant multisyllabic nonsense passed down for generations.

“This is creepy,” Clarke hears Bellamy’s voice right next to her ear; she knows he’s leaning right over her shoulder, but she can’t open her eyes and break the power triad, or they’ll have to start the chants from the beginning. “Like if I wasn’t half dead, and I was hearing this through the wall, I’d think you guys were some satanic cult. How do your neighbors not call the cops on you?”

She elbows where she thinks his guts should be. It connects with air, but it must be the air where he’s floating because he promptly shuts up.

“O, mighty Spirits, we call upon thee.” Raven starts when the chanting portion ends. “For your guidance, to help us see.” It doesn’t have to rhyme, but Raven has always been extra like that. “Be thee far or be thee near: bring us the power of the Spirits here.”

Wells, Raven, and Clarke share a look; they’ve been a coven so long that it’s easy to understand intent (at least in witchy situations) without verbal communication. All three reach for the wooden planchette sitting atop their ancient Ouija board. Only their fingertips graze the planchette; the Spirits will do most of the work. With witches, the silly mortal games of “who moved the pointer?” are never relevant. Either it moves, and the Spirits are talking to you, or it stays still, and they haven’t heard your call. (Unless, of course, witches are playing with a Ouija board with mortals, in which case a witch will almost always move the pointer themselves and watch the following chaos ensue.)

Raven’s voice has a booming quality when she’s practicing magic. “Spirits, are you here?”

The planchette inches slowly across the board to point to “yes.”

(“Holy shit,” Clarke hears Bellamy breathe right behind her ear.)

“We ask you for your truth,” Raven announces, eyes never leaving the board. “Is Bellamy Blake’s coma magically induced?”

The planchette shifts slightly away from its placement on the corner of the board before retreating to “yes.”

Raven’s eyes flick upward only a second to meet Clarke’s before they’re focused on the board again and she’s asking her next question. “Is this coma… is he in a coma because Clarke overused her healing power?”

The planchette repeats its motion as if it’s going through a routine. It inches slowly away from “yes” before it returns to its placement.

It’s not remarkably new information. This was what they’d all guessed, but Clarke’s eyes can’t stop from tearing up slightly. Her fault.

She feels a rush of air blow on her shoulder. Bellamy’s resting his hand there, to comfort her like she comforted him. “It’s not your fault,” he whispers, as if he can read her stupid mind.

Raven trudges on. “How can we help Bellamy? What do we need to do?”

“What, no, ‘oh, mighty Spirits’ this time? Don’t you think sucking up a little might help?” Bellamy jokes. Clarke can’t help the way her mouth turns up a bit at the corners.

Finally, the planchette finds a new motion, moving down the board toward the individual letters.

“R-I-G-H-T,” Raven calls out the letters as the pointer moves. “T-H-E-W-R-O-N-G-S.”

Wells blinks a few times. “Maybe we should’ve written that down, I didn’t get all that.”

Clarke is inclined to agree when Bellamy says, “Right the wrongs.”

“Right the wrongs?” Clarke repeats, mostly for Raven and Wells’s sake.

“Which wrongs?” Raven asks the board, but the planchette is stagnant.

“They’re gone.” Wells says.

Clarke’s mind is still spinning while Raven and Wells discuss what the Spirits might mean. Bellamy Blake is half ghost because Clarke healed him. He is also alive because she healed him. And to fix him she must right the wrongs. Her wrongs? Had she been wrong to heal him? Or his wrongs? What had he even done wrong?

“I think it’s obvious,” Wells is saying when Clarke opens her ears back up the world. “We need to fix the mistakes Bellamy has made. Right the wrongs he’s done to people who are important to him. You’re a spirit and you need to fix your mortal mistakes. So, we’re going to need your help.” He looks pointedly to the left of Clarke, where he thinks Bellamy is sitting.

“He’s actually right behind me,” Clarke clarifies.

“Fix my mortal mistakes?” Bellamy scoffs. “Have you _seen_ Ghost Whisperer? Taking care of unfinished business comes right before you walk into the light and I _don’t want to die_.” He hisses.

There was a bright light in Raven’s premonition and if she was crying by Bellamy’s bedside…

“We have to listen to the Spirits. Not doing that is what got me in this mess.” Clarke tells him.

“Got _us_ in this mess,” Wells tries to reassure her. “I mean like- shit, not like you dragged us into your mess, but like we’re with you while you take care of your mess.”

“I got that, Wells, thank you.”

Clarke turns around to face Bellamy, so she can look him in the eyes. He’s hesitant still, she can tell. She wouldn’t want to leave life behind this young either.

“So,” she says, careful not to lose eye contact, “what are your biggest regrets?”

* * *

 

If someone had told Clarke a week ago that she’d be sitting on the freeway in traffic with a half-ghost, half-man sitting directly to her right, she would’ve said it was possible. Her life is pretty weird sometimes.

They’d given it a night to plot out how exactly to fix Bellamy’s biggest regrets, or at least address them, and he had narrowed it down to three people he needed to see. An ex-girlfriend, an old coworker, and a former college professor. Watching him plot out the wrong turns he took in his life made Clarke unfortunately existential. Who would her regrets be? Lexa? Finn? Her mom?

And now they were on the freeway, drudging through traffic to get out of the city to drive to hick town, USA, where Bellamy had grown up, and apparently, where both the girlfriend and the coworker could be found.

The plan was still shaky on what they were going to do exactly when they got there; after all, Bellamy couldn’t exactly talk to them. Clarke wishes Wells could’ve tagged along – he’s always been the most competent people person – but Clarke is the only one who had the vacation days to call in sick to work for a whole week, as well as the only person with the physical capacity to see Bellamy, so it seems like this is her civic duty.

“Do you always do that?” Bellamy asks, and gestures his head toward the wheel. “Thrum your fingers on the steering wheel?”

“I don’t know, I was just thinking.”

“Those types of things are usually nervous ticks. My sister bites her nails,” He informs her.

“What are you, a psychologist?” Clarke rolls her eyes, her voice not malicious enough to be angry, but not light enough for her to be teasing.

“No, but I could’ve been a psych teacher.” Bellamy quips. “I always preferred history, though.”

She takes his conversation bait. If she’s on a road trip with a semi-dead guy, she may as well get to know him. “What grade did you teach?”

“Mostly ninth and tenth graders. Ancient history.”

“So, what you’re telling me is you get to make the ‘it’s ancient history’ joke a lot?”

Her eyes are trained on the road, but she can sense the smile in his voice when he says, “Yeah.”

“I can’t imagine having you for a teacher in high school,” Clarke says without thinking.

“Yeah?” Bellamy quirks an eyebrow at her. “Why not?”

Clarke’s cheeks redden as she assesses her last statement. Most of her teachers in high school had been old, white guys in suits probably made in the seventies or ugly button-downs. The closest thing she had to a crush on a teacher was Mrs. Rivers, who was still just a really good looking forty-five.

“Well, it’s just… I didn’t have young teachers in high school. And you’re pretty good looking, so…”

“I’m good looking?” Bellamy replies, sounding smug.

“Shut up.”

The smug smile doesn’t fade but he does say, “You’re not wrong. I was having some trouble with people taking me seriously, students and coworkers, but growing the beard helped. Makes me look older.”

Clarke tries to picture Bellamy without a beard and fails. “I wouldn’t even know what you look like without the beard.”

“Think jawline for days.”

“Helpful.”

“You wanted to know! Besides, you’re probably gonna see it if I wake up. My beard will be so overgrown, I’m going to have to shave.”

“Well, maybe you’d look good as Gandalf.”

“You’re right, and my students will definitely take me more seriously if they think I’m a wizard.”

Clarke says a two-word incantation so that the car starts driving itself. It’s showy, and utterly unnecessary since they’re in crawling traffic, but she likes seeing the way Bellamy’s eyes widen when she takes her hands off the wheel and her foot off the petal.

“Or you could just tell them that you’re friends with a witch.”

When conversation lapses into silence, mostly because Bellamy would rather stare at the car driving itself than talk to her, Clarke puts on her playlist.

It only takes about five songs for Bellamy to pipe back up again. “Why does all your music sound like the background music to a movie trailer?”

“Probably because I downloaded the background music to movie trailers.”

“Really, _that’s_ your genre?”

“Well, it’s not really a genre.” She picks at the cuticles on her now free left hand. “It’s more like… life can be so mundane but listening to this music takes you on an intense journey. Like every moment is leading up to something big and substantial. It’s music with purpose.”

Bellamy tries to hold back a laugh but it comes out through his nose.

“What? What’s so funny?” Clarke huffs.

He grins at her. “Clarke, you’re a witch. You have fucking magical powers and you heal people, magically and medically, every day. If anyone’s life is deserving of movie trailer music, it’s yours. Your life is _not_ boring.”

“Yeah, well, you haven’t seen me on the nights I binge Netflix and eat hot Cheetos.”

* * *

 

Clarke learns a couple things about Bellamy on their six-hour road trip. She learns that he’s one of those teachers who’ll definitely be more lenient with his favorite students, but they’re also the ones that try the hardest. She learns that he has no patience for restroom stops on road trips, and if he was capable of eating, he’d definitely buy a Slim Jim at the gas station. She learns that he loves to argue, no matter the topic. He likes to see people get riled up, but even more, he likes it if you argue right back. She learns that he hates the Beetles, but loves ancient Rome, and that he got to name his little sister. By the time they pull up to their first stop, she feels like she knows more about him than some of the colleagues she’s had for over two years.

“Do I have to do this?” Clarke whines, looking at the pastel blue front door that looks more imposing with every step she takes toward it.

“This was your idea,” Bellamy reminds her. “I thought we should just call, but you said-”

“You really think I was gonna be able to explain _this_ over the phone?” She gestures vaguely from herself to him.

She’s not sure it’s possible, but she swears she can see his skin pale. “You’re going to explain to them that I’m… a sort-of ghost?”

“No, I’m not, it’s just- how seriously are they really going to take an apology over the phone when it’s not even from you. This has to be face to face.”

“Well, those are your words. Go knock on the door.”

She finds a doorbell, though, so she rings that. The chime mimics birds chirping and the sound combined with the picket white fence and cottage house makes Clarke feel as though she’s been thrown into some fifties movie realm where a housewife will open the door and offer her a plate of cookies.

The girl who opens the door is not the picture of a fifties housewife, she’s in stretchy pants and a flowy green shirt. Curly brown hair cascades over her shoulders.

But the most prominent thing is her large baby bump.

“ _That_ was not there when I left,” Bellamy says, staring.

The woman smiles at Clarke. “How can I help you?”

“Oh!” Clarke responds, moving her eyes away from the woman’s stomach. “Gina, right?” The woman nods. “Hi, I’m Clarke. I’m, um, a friend of Bellamy’s. And I know this sounds a little weird, but I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes.”

She appraises Clarke for a minute before opening her door.

As Clarke sits on the floral sofa, Gina asks, “Do you want anything to drink?”

“No, I’m good. I really won’t be long.”

Gina smirks, “City people. Life’s a rush, right?”

Clarke raises an eyebrow, “How’d you know I’m from the city?”

“TonDC, right? That’s the last place I heard Bellamy was. So, unless he moved…”

“No, he’s still in TonDC. And yeah, life’s definitely a little slower here.”

Gina plops down in an armchair across from Clarke, one hand resting gently on her baby bump. “I can’t imagine Bellamy in the city. He was a country boy the entire time I knew him.” Nostalgia washes over her face. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Well, Bellamy just wanted me to pass along this message to you.” Clarke gulps.

Bellamy bites his lip. “Tell her I’m sorry treating her badly while we were together. Tell her I’m sorry for taking her for granted.”

“He wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry for the way he treated you while you were together. He wanted to say that he’s sorry for taking you for granted.”

“Our relationship took so much time out of her life and I was never fully committed and she… she didn’t deserve that.” Bellamy hangs his head.

“He says he’s sorry that you guys were together so long and he never really gave himself to the relationship. He wanted me to tell you that you deserved so much better when you were with him.” It didn’t sound like the Bellamy Clarke had gotten to know.

Gina’s face isn’t nostalgic anymore, but quizzical. The way one might be if a random girl dropped by your house to deliver someone else’s apology.

“Are you his girlfriend now?” She asks.

“What?” Clarke’s eyes widen. “No, I’m his friend! And well, his doctor, I met him because I’m his doctor, but I’m also his friend.”

“And he sent his doctor friend all the way from TonDC to tell me this? Why couldn’t he call?”

Bellamy lifts his head to look at Clarke. He’s half-dead. That’s the real answer.

It’s also one Clarke can’t give.

“Like I said, I’m his doctor.” Clarke is proud her voice only slightly trembles. “And right now, he’s not doing… great. I’m really hoping he’s going to make a full recovery, but just in case, he asked me to tell you this.”

“He’s sick?” Worry washes over Gina’s face. It’s the kind of worry that never goes away when you once loved someone.

Clarke nods in response.

The conversation lulls as Gina thinks over the words just spoken, both Clarke’s and the ones Clarke delivered for Bellamy.

Finally, “Bellamy always had a really warped mind view of himself. When things went wrong, not just in our relationship, in everything, he liked to take the blame. And he was a shitty boyfriend sometimes, but he never saw the big picture.” She shakes her head slightly. “That relationship didn’t go bad because Bellamy wasn’t invested enough, or because he wasn’t enough for me, it went bad because we weren’t meant for each other. He wasn’t my person. I wasn’t his person. He wants to take the blame, but relationships are two-way streets.” She pauses again, but only for a second. “I found my person. And we’re going to start a family.” She gestures to her stomach. “When you see Bellamy again, can you tell him I hope he finds his?”

Clarke doesn’t have to take a six-hour car trip to Bellamy’s hospital room to see his reaction to that, though. She can see it right now, all over his face. If ghosts could cry, tears would be brimming his eyes, but instead, his deep, brown eyes are just slightly squinted, and the smallest of smiles sits upon his face.

In that moment, Clarke knows they’re on the right path. They’re on the way to righting the wrongs. Not to fix the people that Bellamy has wronged, but to fix Bellamy.

* * *

 

“What’s his name again?” Clarke asks as she parks the car outside a dingy looking bar called The Dropship. The front door has a screen over it that’s hanging slightly off the hinges and two of the neon letters on the sign are out, so it looks like they’re at “The Dophip.”

“For the tenth time,” Bellamy replies, “It’s Murphy. You’re looking for Murphy.”

“Well, I’m sorry he can’t have a normal name.”

“Said Clarke to Bellamy,” Bellamy deadpans. “His first name is John if that helps, but nobody calls him that.”

Clarke leans up against the wall right outside the door and looks at Bellamy. “Think you could maybe give me the gist beforehand this time so I don’t have to follow you on the fly as much? What’s your regret with him.”

Bellamy sighs and rubs his forearm. “Well, we worked together for a couple years, took over for the old owner – Pike – together. I needed the job to support myself and Octavia, but Octavia graduated and moved away to college, and then when I broke up with Gina, I didn’t have much tying me to Arkadia anymore. I always really wanted to go back to school, so I just packed up and left. And it’s not- I know it was right for me, but it was shit for Murphy. He had to take on the whole business by himself, and it wasn’t like we were exactly booming anyway. I left him with a struggling business while I went off to get my degree. I just want to tell him I’m sorry for that.”

Clarke isn’t sure she agrees. He’s so clearly torn up about this, she can see it in his body language, but it seems to her that he just got himself out of a small town. He shouldn’t feel so bad about it, but it’s not her call to make.

For as seedy as the outside of the bar looks, the inside of The Dropship is actually pretty sleek. Red carpeting and dark walls make her feel like she’s stepped into a different realm than the small town she’s been getting used to all day. The bar is crowded, thriving really; it’s almost too loud with chatter and laughter for Clarke to get the bartender’s attention.

“Hi!” She calls to him once he’s finished serving a customer. “I’m looking for Murphy- is he here?”

The bartender, a somewhat sour-faced man in a beanie points to a door which Clarke supposes leads to staff’s quarters. “Do you want me to get him for you?”

Bellamy shakes his head at her so Clarke shouts over the noise, “No, it’s fine!”

Clarke follows Bellamy out of The Dropship and around the building. “This is the staff entrance. The door is almost never locked during work hours. This way you can talk without the noise.” He clarifies.

“It doesn’t really feel like you left Murphy with a struggling business from what I saw.”

“It’s all new. He remodeled and the clientele… there were people in there who wouldn’t have taken a step in the door back when I ran The Dropship.”

The inside of the staff’s quarters is a lot less flashy. Everything is gray and slightly metallic, there are a few chairs and an old desktop computer. And of course, the man standing by one of the many shelves, who looks over at her as she enters. If she had to describe his face, she’d say he looked like a beautiful alien; the type of face that was just weird enough he could be a fashion model.

“Who are you?” He asks, no pretenses.

She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and extends her hand as she walks over to him. “My name’s Clarke, I’m actually a friend of Bellamy’s.”

“A friend of Bellamy’s?” He doesn’t shake.

She nods, and he eyes flit to Bellamy’s for a second before she drops her hand. The look he gives her says that this kind of attitude is par for the course with this guy. “I’m just here to deliver a message from Bellamy.”

“A message?” He scoffs. “He’s too good for texts now?”

“He’s… unavailable right now, and he just asked me to tell you this.” She doesn’t wait for him to say anything back this time, just trudges on with her speech. “He wants to say he’s sorry for the way he left things. He knows the bar wasn’t in a good state back then and he shouldn’t have left you with the business. It wasn’t fair.”

Murphy opens his mouth to say something, but as he does the door from the bar opens and a woman with a face tattoo strides in. She snakes her arms around Murphy from behind and grins at him before she even notices Clarke is there.

“Who’s this?” She asks.

“Bellamy Blake’s girlfriend.”

Clarke rolls her eyes but doesn’t bother to correct him.

“Bellamy Blake?” The woman asks, incredulous. “The same Bellamy Blake who left you with the bar?”

“The very one. Apparently, she’s here to apologize for him.” Murphy says, but his voice isn’t vindictive like Clarke thought it would be, he just sounds amused.

The woman takes this as her cue to untangle herself from Murphy and step toward Clarke. “Well, you can tell him he’s a piece of shit.” She says, somewhat slurring. “And that he ran a crap bar. John and I made this place ten times what it was when he was here and-”

“Okay,” Murphy says, drawing out the last syllable as he pulls back the woman. “Why don’t you go back inside and go talk to Miller for a little while?”

“I’m not _that_ drunk,” She says, but flips Clarke off and walks back into the bar.

“Sorry about her,” Murphy tells Clarke, not sounding sorry at all. “She’s right though.” He continues. “Not about Bellamy being an asshole, even though he kind of is, that’s just a personality trait. But the bar needed Emori. I never would have met her if Bellamy hadn’t left and I hadn’t been ragging about it. She came in one night and I just told her all the problems with this place and she came back with a business deal. If Bellamy had stayed on, we would have run this bar into the ground.”

“Looked like a little more than business partners,” Bellamy said under his breath.

“So, you accept his apology?” Clarke asks, ignoring Bellamy.

Murphy smirks. “I’ll accept his apology when he calls me up and apologizes and doesn’t send his girlfriend to do it. But for the record, I was never angry. He needed to go. If you tell him I said that, though, I’ll deny it.”

Clarke bites her lip to stop from smiling. “I won’t say word.”

She looks over to Bellamy, to see if he’s content, but his face is scrunched up in it’s I’m-thinking-pretty-hard-right-now expression. Oh God, since when does she know his expressions? She’s in way too deep for a two-day friendship.

“One more thing,” Bellamy tells Clarke. “Tell I’m sorry for making him the bait and I was the one who made him use the rocks. He’ll know what it means.”

Clarke’s eyebrows scrunch a little in confusion, but she repeats the sentence back to Murphy, who’s eyes promptly widen.

“That little piece of shit. I can’t believe he was the one who-”

“Now’s the time to exit.” Bellamy whispers in her ear while Murphy lets out a string of profanity. He doesn’t have to lean down to her, no one will hear him, but she finds it strangely nice that he does. “He’s gonna be like this for a while.”

“Bye!” Clarke calls to Murphy, who’s still in a state of shock over whatever bomb Bellamy just dropped, and she books it for the back door.

* * *

 

On the brief car ride to the hotel, Bellamy explains the story of Murphy, some rocks, a douchebag Octavia was dating, and a very dubious package of string cheese that led to Murphy’s subsequent arrest, where he had to spend twenty-four hours in the local jail.

By the time they arrive at the hotel, Clarke just wants to hop in the shower and go to bed, so she dumps her small duffel bag of things on the ground and claims the bathroom for her own the minute they open the room door. Not that Bellamy’s really fighting her for claim to the toilet or the shower.

She only gets to really appreciate the room once she’s fully clean and in her pajamas (a loose college t-shirt and flannel pants). It’s nicer than Clarke’s used to in the city. It’s older too, with a real key for the room and not a keycard. Everything is decorated in a way that’s classy, but old fashioned. The mattress is just firm enough that she feels supported, but soft enough she sinks into it a little.

She’s reveling in the feeling of her hair spreading out around her as she flops onto her back on the bed when she notices Bellamy lying on the floor.

“Is this the point when we fight over who’s the most chivalrous and is going to sleep on the floor?” She teases. “Or can we just skip that and you get up here?”

“I can’t sleep in that bed.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Do we really need to do this? It’s a queen, it’ll fit us both, just come up here-”

“No, Clarke.” He says more forcefully. “I can’t sleep. I tried to last night before we left and I… I physically can’t. I just laid there all night until you came to get me the next morning.”

The guilt hits Clarke like a punch to the stomach. Of course, he’s not alive anymore, or at least this part of him isn’t.

She meets his eyes. “Oh, Bellamy-”

“No, Clarke!” Bellamy snaps, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t give me that look. Don’t act like this is your fault and you’re _so_ guilty about it.”

Clarke stutters and tries to respond, but before she can, he continues, his voice growing in volume. “I’m tired of you giving me that look like you’re the guilty one. You saved my life! I’m alive because of you. If you hadn’t saved me, I’d be dead, and not… not this.”

Clarke’s eyes begin to water in spite of her. “Yeah, well, you’re still not living. And that’s my fault. I still don’t know if I can save you and that’s on me, Bellamy!”

“Oh, would you give it up with this crap? Do you know how bad I feel about this? Because you saved me, and this- this limbo I’m in, I should be grateful for it because I’m _alive_. But I don’t feel grateful, I feel like shit and then I feel like shit for feeling like shit because I could be dead, and I would be dead without you. I feel like a fucking bad person for being mad about this situation.”

“Well, I feel like a bad person because I _knew_ that healing you could have consequences, I knew I was over my limit and I still did it.” She snaps right back, just as much vehemence in her tone.

He laughs, a sarcastic laugh, and stares up at ceiling before running his hands tiredly over his face. “Do you not see how that makes you an even better person?”

His quieter tone prompts her to lower hers too. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Bellamy.” Her voice shakes a little.

“Then don’t say anything.”

He walks over to the bathroom and makes a move to close the door, but it won’t move under his noncorporeal form.

“Can you shut the door for me?” He asks brokenly, and she does.

Clarke has a hard time getting to sleep with Bellamy one room away, his shouted words still playing over in her head.

* * *

 

She doesn’t usually remember her dreams, just feelings and fragments. This morning is no different, and all she can remember from the blur of her sleep is one overwhelming emotion: stress.

She groans as she stretches out, not willing to open her eyes, because that meant acceptance that she’s awake and has to face the day. The sheets bunch under her as she moves, fabric rippling uncomfortably under her. She tries to make shapes out of the popcorn ceiling when she does open her eyes, to occupy her racing mind, but one particular divot in the roof looks like a cartoon ghost, which of course, reminds her of her real ghostly problem.

She thinks she understands him. He’s only half alive and he’s mad about it, but he doesn’t think he can be mad, because that makes him ungrateful. The thought process makes sense every time it plays through her mind, but it’s just so goddamn logical. And she’s all for logic; she once organized her entire vinyl album collection alphabetically so that any guests would be able to locate the record they wanted (before Raven told her that no one ever wanted to use her vintage record player and asked Clarke why she wouldn’t accept twenty-first century sound quality into her heart). But Bellamy is half-dead, half-alive, in a coma, but also wandering around the state with her, no where near his loved ones, and he should be going insane. He should be off the walls mad about his situation. The situation _she put him in_. But the thing he’s mad about is that he’s mad in the first place. If he wasn’t so considerate, Clarke might just hate him.

When Clarke emits yet another groan, a familiar voice greets her, “You gonna do that all morning?”

She shoots up in bed to see Bellamy lying on his back against the carpeted floor, legs propped up on a night stand. He won’t look her in the eyes.

“I didn’t know if you’d be here when I woke up.” Clarke admits.

He meets her admission with his own. “I tried to leave, but I couldn’t. I think I’m attached to you.”

“Attached to me?” Her heart stutters.

“Yeah, like when I tried to leave the hotel last night, I only got a couple steps outside the door before I started disappearing. It was my body the first few steps, my skin got more and more translucent and when I got the stairs, I couldn’t even see my feet, so I just turned around.” He shrugged, as if it were a casual fact that he couldn’t be more than a few feet away from her.

It wasn’t that unusual, really. When she healed him, the universe, the Spirits, whoever, deemed him her problem. She made the error, she was the only one who could see him, and now, he could only be near her or face whatever happened when he vanished completely.

“Wait.” Clarke said suddenly, changing her train of thought. “How did you get out of the bathroom? You couldn’t close the door before and when I went to sleep you were in the bathroom.”

“Oh,” He grinned, momentarily dropping his sullen demeanor. “I can phase through things. I was thinking about when you threw that book at me and it passed through me, so I figured, why can’t _I_ pass through other things?”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“Maybe this ghost thing has some perks after all.” It isn’t addressing what happened last night, it isn’t the conversation they need to have, but for now, it’s a peace offering. And when Clarke sees his lips twitch upward and his eyes meet hers, she can’t help but take the olive branch.

* * *

 

The car ride to Bellamy’s old university isn’t as filled with lively chatter as it was before, but Clarke’s iPod is on shuffle drowning out the silence, and Bellamy isn’t brooding as much as he was last night. And Clarke is only a brooding a little bit, which is better than she can say for most of her daily life.

Marcus Kane’s office door is covered in sticky notes, each in different writing. They range from “you da best, dr. k!” to “I think Friday’s exam focused too much on the French Revolution, which we only had one lecture on the whole semester.”

“Constructive criticism door.” Bellamy clarifies. “It’s one of the ways he likes to get feedback from his students.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow. “I can’t believe people actually do this. Half my college professors, no one would’ve cared enough to write anything and the other half would probably just be a door full of ‘fuck you’s.”

“Well, you didn’t have Marcus Kane for a professor. Think charm to the eight hundredth power.”

Just as she’s about to knock, as if summoned, the office door swings open (narrowly avoiding slamming her in the face). A man in his early fifties wearing slacks and a casual button down stands in the doorway.

After she jumps back to avoid the swinging door, he speaks. “I’m so sorry, the door didn’t get you, did it?”

She shakes her head. “No, no, I’m fine.” She glances over to Bellamy and quirks an eyebrow, _Is this him?_ He nods in response. “Dr. Kane, I was hoping I could speak with you for a moment.”

“I’m afraid my office hours were earlier this morning. I was just about to get a coffee from the café so if you have a quick question, I can probably help if we walk and talk. Or you can always schedule a time to meet with me.” He doesn’t sound like an exhausted professor, but someone genuinely trying to help. She can already see why his students like him, and he’s definitely better looking than some of the stuffy professors she had in med school.

“Actually, I’m not a student.” She corrects. “I’m a friend of Bellamy Blake’s.”

“Bellamy Blake!” A grin overtakes Kane’s face, and out of the corner of her eye, she can see Bellamy’s light up similarly. “I haven’t thought about the Blakes in a while. How are they?”

“Bellamy and Octavia are doing… well,” She fibs. “Bellamy just knew I was driving through the area and told me to stop by to talk to his favorite professor.” She prepared her small backstory after dealing with Murphy and Gina, who didn’t want to accept that Bellamy couldn’t be there himself.

“Come grab a coffee with me!” He says invitingly.

The café is really just a coffee bar on the nearby quad. Kane and Clarke both order large, sweet drinks, more sugar than coffee, Bellamy quips about how they aren’t drinking _real coffee_ , and Clarke has to hold back a smile and bite her tongue that aches to argue with him.

“Honestly, I’m quite surprised to hear from Bellamy. Well, indirectly.” Kane smiles at Clarke once they’ve sat down on an empty bench. “Octavia took a few classes with me before she transferred, but I haven’t heard from Bellamy since he dropped out.”

“Dropped out?” Clarke responds without thinking. She didn’t know that. Bellamy had only told her that he went to school here, and she figured he’d completed it here, at Ark University.

“Yes,” Kane replies, frowning. “When he got custody of Octavia, he dropped out of undergrad here.”

“Of course!” Clarke says, maybe too enthusiastically. Because a real friend would know that Bellamy gave up his education to take care of his sister, but her knowledge of him was limited to what they’d squabbled about in the car, the fact he liked mythology and Oreo cookies, and that he had a tendency to play with his hair, despite the fact nothing is palpable to him currently. “I always forget he dropped out, since he ended up finishing his undergrad at…” She trailed off and looked to Bellamy for help.

“Polis,” Bellamy supplied.

“Polis.” Clarke finished.

“He went back?” Kane says with an awed smile. He pauses to sip his coffee before continuing, “He was so adamant back then. He couldn’t do undergrad, not with Octavia in his life, she had to come first. His responsibility. It was kind of like his mantra back then. I offered him extra help – he was one of my brightest students – and I really wanted him to keep pursuing his degree, but,” Kane shakes his head slightly, “He wouldn’t go for it. Stubborn as a bull, but I guess you’d know that if you’re friends.”

Clarke’s fingers rub gently over the sleeve on her coffee cup, the ridges of cardboard pressing into her skin. One of those nervous habits she had that Bellamy had pointed out, she guesses. She really should have gone over the story beforehand, like she had before meeting Murphy, but she didn’t want to disturb the easy peace during the drive. She didn’t want to break the olive branch. And now it’s Gina all over again.

She feels a presence on her shoulder and sees Bellamy to her left. He’s no longer standing, just an observer of her and Kane, but a reassuring force, right next to her. “Hey, it’s fine.” His voice is low, but not a whisper. “Sorry, we didn’t go over this beforehand.” He offers an apologetic smile and she wonders if he’s not just a ghost, but also a mind reader. “That’s the regret, actually. Kane kept trying to get me not to drop out and I think that maybe if I hadn’t, if I’d just tried to raise Octavia and get my degree at the same time, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time. Running the bar, doing nothing with my life. My pride wouldn’t let me take the help. I couldn’t accept help from anyone back then.” He explains, his voice souring slightly.

“He’s told me before that he thinks he should’ve taken your help. He could’ve raised Octavia and stayed in school,” She chooses her words to Kane carefully, who’s nodding along sympathetically. “But he didn’t want hand outs back then.”

“I was so angry at the world back then,” Bellamy continues, and she feels the presence on her shoulders growing somehow heavier. “My mom had just died and I loved my sister so much, but I didn’t want to raise her. Not then. And I was giving up on my dreams to do it, and god, I didn’t have to.” His voice is so thick with emotion that Clarke has trouble reigning her own in.

“He wishes he hadn’t been so stubborn.” She tells Kane, simply.

If Kane can see how affected she is, he doesn’t comment, nor does he pause in the regular intervals of sipping his coffee. He does reply, “I’m just glad he went back in the end. I really wanted to help him back then, but taking care of a teenager is a lot for another teenager. I had Octavia in my classes a few years later. He did a great job raising her, even if she is a little… fiery.” His eyes crinkle at the corner, probably at some nostalgic memory. “Polis has a great program, too. What does he do now?”

“He’s a teacher,” Clarke tells him proudly. “Ancient History.”

Kane huffs out a laugh. “That’s my boy! I always knew he’d take after me.” If Kane has any embarrassment in talking about Bellamy like a son, it doesn’t show.

Bellamy is a different matter. If his cheeks could redden, she knows they would. She may not have known that he was a college dropout, or that he had taken care of his sister at such a young age, but Clarke had the innate ability to sense things about Bellamy. And the man she was sitting next to with the shoulder length hair and the Jesus beard, this was Bellamy’s idol. Bellamy refused Kane’s help when he needed it desperately, but after all this time, Kane was proud of him. She could see the broken pieces of Bellamy mending before her eyes and the presence around her shoulders lightening. He was fixing himself.

“Thank you, Clarke.” Bellamy whispers in her ear. He never has to whisper, nor does he have to sit so close to her, but she’s glad he does. Because for some reason, she doesn’t want him move away.

Clarke thinks if it was anyone else, their ghostly presence would stifle her, but Bellamy fuels her. Makes her feel happier. Makes her feel more.

“When you talk to him again, tell him I’m proud of him.” She had almost forgotten she was talking to Kane until his voice snapped her out of her daze of pure Bellamy.

“I will.” She replies, but she’s glad that she can see Bellamy smiling beside her, and she knows she doesn’t have to.

* * *

 

It’s eight o’clock at night when Clarke checks into the motel she’s staying in (it’s just off campus, with a few kids smoking in the parking lot, but it’s no worse than any other motel she’s been in before) and the sun has almost completely sunk out of the sky.

The day evaporated before Clarke knew it had even really begun. She sat with Kane and their coffees much longer than she anticipated, getting all the best gossip on what Bellamy was like in college (apparently, all hair gel and superior attitude, but with a passion for history that came unparalleled), with the occasional comment from Bellamy to debate Kane’s claims.

The nostalgia hit Bellamy soon after, and he offered her a tour of the campus, which she gladly accepted. He showed her the dorms he stayed in, the place he smoked his first cigarette, and soon after discovered he hated smoking, he showed her the labs he took his required science courses in and complained about how much he hated biology. (She wasn’t shy to remind him she’d been a bio major in undergrad.) He sat with her on the North quad, where he’d gotten the call that his mother was in the hospital. He took her to the bleachers where he watched his last football game before he had to take care of Octavia full-time.

And for every fact she learned about him as they walked around idly, he asked for one about her. He now knew that her magic stemmed from her father’s side. He knew that her mother was a mortal, and their relationship was strained at best. He learned that she and Wells started their coven at age seven, with a blood pact, to the complete horror of their parents. He learned that they invited Raven into their coven ten years later, after knowing her only three weeks, but they never once regretted it. He knew that she only liked ice cream that was some sort of chocolate, and he offered to buy her some when she stopped for a snack before remembering that he no longer had a tangible wallet.

If she asked him what her favorite color is, she thinks he’d say blue, like the paintings of the sky and the ocean she told him she makes, or the blue frosting on the store-bought cake at her tenth birthday that she’d picked out because it was pretty, unknowing that blue frosting tastes little better than garbage.

If he asked her what his favorite is, she’d definitely say green, like the trees that he explained were his favorite place to study by, with ample amount of shade for reading at midday, or like freshly mowed grass (“It’s aesthetically pleasing. People who don’t mow their lawns are just lazy. Just cut the grass.” “I live in a loft apartment in the middle of the city.” “Just _cut the grass_ , Clarke.”).

One thing they don’t talk about is the fact that they’ve reached the end of his list. He’s faced what he thinks are all of his biggest mistakes, and nothing’s happened. No, they don’t talk about that.

A day spent doing nothing, but learning everything. That’s how they end up staying the night in a motel in Bellamy’s college town.

Clarke doesn’t feel like crashing as quickly as she did yesterday, so she pulls out her laptop and opens up Netflix, she’s missed a few days of binging and she’s only midway through season two of Queer Eye. She’s eager to catch up.

Just as she’s about to plug in her earbuds, Bellamy reaches for her hand to stop her. He reaches a little too forcefully apparently because instead of resting on top of it, it phases straight through and Clarke shivers involuntary as a chill runs through her.

“Sorry,” Bellamy says sheepishly. “Just, can I watch with you?”

Clarke eyes him. If she thought she could deny Bellamy Blake anything, that was before she saw his puppy dog eyes. “Fine,” she sighs playfully, as if it’s enormous burden. “But I’m not going back to the beginning for you.”

He’s never seen Queer Eye before, and she has to explain the premise to him, which she thinks should be annoying but he smiles at her when she adds in little details about the Fab Five or quirks about the show, and she can’t be annoyed that she’s talking over some of the makeover segment.

She tells him that Jonathan is her favorite; she likes his attitude and his life outlook.

He interjects with comments every once in a while, particularly during Antoni’s segments, and that’s how she learns that he loves to cook.

After three episodes, he makes his declaration. “Karamo is my favorite,” he says confidently.

“Oh yeah? Why?”

“He helps people. Guides them and puts them on the right path.” A strange expression passes over his face after he says it. “I guess you’re kind of like my Karamo,” he admits. “You’re fixing me.” His hand is on hers again, just resting, not phasing through.

“Oh, Bellamy, no.” She responds more forcefully than she means to. “Don’t you get it?” (He doesn’t.) “You’re fixing yourself.”

He shakes his head, “You’re selling yourself short, but…” He trails off for a moment. “If I’m fixed, why am I still…?” He gestures to himself. The topic they’d been avoiding all day.

He’s still part ghost.

Clarke picks her words carefully, “The Spirits said to right the wrongs. So, is there anything else that needs to be righted?” She asks. She has a feeling she already knows the answer.

“No, those were the big three. And I can’t very well go fix everything I’ve ever done wrong in my whole life.” He sounds petulant.

“ _Bellamy_ ,” she pleads with him, “You’ve got to look inside yourself. I think you know there’s something else you need to fix.”

“You sound like Karamo,” He mutters, and she wishes she were better at hiding how much he makes her smile. “You’re thrumming your fingers again.”

She glances down to realize he’s right. Her fingers are tapping out a patter on her laptop, right next to her touchpad.

“Are you nervous?” He asks.

She shakes her head. “No. I just know you know there’s something else, and I really wish you’d accept it.”

He chews his lip in deliberation, and she struggles to keep her eyes connected with his.

After what could be minutes of silence and staring, or maybe it was only moments, Clarke can’t tell, he finally says the word she’s been waiting to hear: “Octavia.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll head back to TonDC tomorrow?” He questions.

“Yeah.”

“It’s too bad. I kind of like it here.”

“I kind of like it here, too.” She admits.

But maybe she just likes Bellamy.

* * *

 

After her shower, she lies down on the mattress, which certainly isn’t as comfortable as the one she had last night in Arkadia’s cute little bed and breakfast. It’s lumpy and kind of stiff, but a bad mattress isn’t the reason her breathing is slightly off-kilter.

Bellamy lies across from her, and while all of last night’s animosity seems to have worn off in the day, he’s finally made good on the offer she made him the night before to share the bed.

His large arm rests on hers as he faces her in the Queen bed. There’s no weight behind it, she can’t feel his touch, it’s more like a presence, a light breeze floating atop her own arm. He doesn’t need to sleep, but he’s lying there with her, as she attempts to chase her own dreams.

It seems like the point in the movie where she should be drifting off to sleep, and that’s when he reveals his secret, his confession. Her eyes should be drifting shut when lets out an admission, and she’s so tired the next morning she’ll think it’s a dream.

But maybe they’re in a different movie because her eyes are wide open and they’re gazing straight into his when he says, “I’d be attached to you anyway. Even if I didn’t have to be here physically.” He’s talking about this morning, she realizes, the fact that he can’t leave her. “I’d want to be with you.”

_Physically_ , she thinks. He’d want his spirit to be near her. That’s what he means. She pulls her arm out from under his (though it’s really more of a courtesy, because her arm would pass right through his if she lifted it up) as she flips over to avoid facing him.

She can’t help but think that she’s not the only one who hears the double meaning in his words.

* * *

 

Octavia Blake hasn’t left the hospital for three straight days. That’s what the doctors tell her, anyway, when she and Bellamy finally arrive back in TonDC. She sits in the waiting room with a magazine, eats in their cafeteria, strolls around their gardens, but never actually enters the room where her brother lies.

If Bellamy hadn’t explained in excruciating detail that Octavia made her living as a martial arts instructor, Clarke would’ve been certain she was a model because even here, in the middle of a hospital hallway, not-so-subtle bags under her eyes and a coffee cup glued to her right hand, she could’ve made the cover of a magazine.

Clarke almost calls out for Ms. Blake, but thinks better of it at the last second and approaches her with a soft, “Octavia?”

“Dr. Griffin,” she replies, back straightening as she turns to face Clarke. “I was told you were on leave.”

“I was- am.” Clarke corrects herself. “But I need to talk to you about something,” She glances around the crowded hallway, “In private. Maybe in the gardens?”

Octavia frowns, but nods and follows Clarke toward the nearest exit. The walk is excruciatingly slow. Octavia stays silent, as does Clarke. Only Bellamy’s voice fills the air, chattering on about nothing, stupid little jokes meant to calm Clarke’s racing nerves, but they’re half-hearted, she knows, because Bellamy is nervous too.

Clarke knows what she has to do. She’s known it since she realized that Bellamy needed to mend fences with Octavia. She has to admit what she knows she should never tell a mortal.

She has to admit she’s a witch.

Clarke’s run the scenario a thousand times in her head, but there’s no other way. Octavia _knows_ that Clarke doesn’t know Bellamy. She can’t deliver his message under false pretenses.

The garden is green this time of year, vibrant, and Clarke regrets that she doesn’t come out here more. The flowers bloom in different shades of pink, yellow, and orange, and fill the air with a scent that beautifully opposes the sterility of the hospital.

“Do you believe in magic, Octavia?” Clarke starts, once they’re far enough into the gardens to avoid other people strolling through.

“What? Oh-” Understanding washes over her face. “You want to do more of that healing mumbo jumbo your friend did on Bellamy?”

“Actually, it’s kind of about that.” Clarke replies sheepishly. “She wasn’t really doing anything with alternative medicine. She was trying to get a premonition about why Bellamy was in a coma. Because she’s a witch.”

Octavia stares.

“And I’m a witch,” Clarke continues, rushing through her statements. “And Bellamy, he- he was supposed to die. Or at least that’s what would have happened if I hadn’t healed him. But I wasn’t supposed to heal him which is why he’s not awake.”

The staring doesn’t cease.

Octavia shakes her head. “This is a really unfunny joke, lady, or you’re insane.”

“Just… watch.” Clarke concentrates on her hand and mutters an incantation, low and intense. Fire sparks to life in her hands. She glances up to see Octavia’s eyes glued to the fire, lets her stare for a few beats, then extinguishes the flame. “Like I said, he was supposed to die, but since I healed him, he’s a coma instead.”

“So, it’s kind of your fault?” Octavia deadpans.

“Yeah,” Clarke replies, and she can feel Bellamy bristle beside her, wanting to say something but biting back his tongue.

For the second time in only a few minutes, Octavia shakes her head again, more to herself than to Clarke. “No. No, I’m not going to believe you because of a dumb magic trick. You’re just a crazy person.”

She starts to walk away when Bellamy tells Clarke to say, “Ask me something only Bellamy would know.”

Octavia halts.

“Something only Bellamy would know; I’d have no way of knowing unless he was here with me.”

“Like his ghost?”

“Like his spirit.”

Clarke can see in her eyes that Octavia is torn between stomping away and giving into her curiosity, but she thinks that main reason Octavia indulges her is desperation to talk to her brother.

“When I was six,” Octavia picks her question with no hesitation, “what did we do for my birthday?”

Bellamy smiles, the one that reaches his eyes, not the fake one he gives sometimes. “Mom was working, so I took you out on one of the bumpy backroads in my truck.” For the first time, he isn’t talking to Clarke, giving her a message to tell someone else, he’s staring his sister straight in the eyes, and telling _her_. “And I told you it was a roller coaster, so you could brag to all your friends in school that you had your own private roller coaster.”

Clarke repeats the story to Octavia without hesitation, though with pointedly less emotion than Bellamy delivered it.

Clarke’s attempt to keep her tone neutral doesn’t stop Octavia’s tears from flowing, though. A choked sob escapes her throat. “Bell?” She asks, looking around.

“I’m here.” He responds.

Clarke points to her right, “He’s here.”

“Bell,” she says, voice hiccupping, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for us to stop talking. I wanted to call you so much since Lincoln and I never did and now you might be-” She cuts herself off.

“I’m sorry, too.” He tries to grab her hand, but phases through. Octavia stares down at her hand, mouth agape, and gives Clarke a questioning look _: Bellamy?_ Clarke can only nod.

“I didn’t approve of Lincoln, that’s no secret.” Bellamy continues. His voice is steadier than Clarke imagined it would be. He feels like he has to be strong while his sister breaks down. “And I let us grow apart because of that. If I had just overcome my pride with that, I might’ve been able to spend time with you. Both of you. I felt like Lincoln took over for me, being the one who was there when you needed it. I didn’t think you needed me anymore.” Bellamy’s voice wavers, just a little. “Then, Lincoln died and I didn’t know how to be there for you; I was too rusty. I had never even accepted him while he was alive, how could you take me seriously if I was comforting you about his death?”

“He’s says he’s sorry, too.” Clarke relays. “He felt like Lincoln replaced him as your emotional support. That you didn’t need him anymore. And when Lincoln died, he just didn’t know how to be there for you anymore. And he regrets it. So much.” She doesn’t need to hear Bellamy say it to tack on the part at the end. She can hear it in his voice whenever he tells a story with Octavia in it. She can see it in his eyes as he looks down at his little sister.

“I can’t lose you,” Octavia admits.

“You’ll never lose me.”

Clarke’s eyes tear up a bit in spite of herself. “He says you’ll never lose him.”

Octavia lets out a sarcastic half-laugh. “That is so sappy. He’ll always be in my heart.” She mocks.

And then they’re both smiling, both the Blakes, and only Clarke see the magic that happens when they both smile at the same time.

“He needs to know one more thing.” Bellamy hasn’t asked Clarke to relay anything else, but she thinks he needs to hear this. “Do you forgive him?”

Octavia wipes at her tears with her sleeve. “Yeah,” She says. “I do.”

* * *

 

Clarke convinces Octavia to go home to shower and eat (“I know what hospital food tastes like, Octavia, I work here. You need real food.”).

Which leaves Clarke on a bench in the hallway on the second floor, the one in the east wing that’s being renovated; the only place she can talk to Bellamy and not look like a crazy person talking to herself.

Bellamy still looks dazed from his conversation with Octavia, but he looks lighter too. The frown line in his forehead is less pronounces, his lips tilt just slightly upward, not that she’s stares at those too long.

After a while, he speaks. “So… I’m still here.”

“You’re still here.” Clarke confirms.

“Shouldn’t something have happened? I faced my demons. Shouldn’t I be walking into some bright light right about now?”

Clarke’s face hardens. “You don’t know that’s what’s going to happen. You could still come back to life, Bellamy. You’re not going to die.”

He’s not going to die. She has to repeat that mantra to herself. He’s Bellamy Blake, he likes to argue for fun, he loves his little sister, and _he’s not going to die_.

The guilt must be written all over her face because Bellamy replies, “I don’t care what Octavia said. This is not your fault.” It’s their argument from a few days ago, but softer this time. “You have to stop feeling guilty about this. You’re a doctor, and a witch, and since I got dropped in your life without warning, you’ve been a damn good friend.”

He reaches for her hand. The familiar rush of air on the back of Clarke’s hand is comforting, and smooth, and just _Bellamy_.

“You might not be an angel, but you are one. You save people, Clarke.”

“I couldn’t save you.” She replies.

“You already did.”

Clarke smiles, eyes watering, and he smiles back, and that’s when she notices. He’s vanishing, part by part. First his legs, then his torso, arms, and head, faster than she can even process it. He’s gone.

* * *

 

She’s never run faster through the hospital than when she runs to Bellamy Blake’s hospital bed.

When she gets to his bedside, the EKG is flatlining, but there aren’t any other doctors to be seen and she’s sobbing, violently sobbing, trying to form his name on her lips, but not having the breath to do it.

She’s next to him, about to call out for more doctors, when the lights go out.

Power outage. Practically unheard of in a hospital. The darkness envelops her and she grabs Bellamy’s hand, his real hand for once, and squeezes. She couldn’t save him.

That’s why it’s so surprising that she feels a pulse.

The lights flicker back on, bright and blinding and all at once, and the EKG beeps, and Clarke breathes again.

Bellamy’s eyes flutter open, the brown ones she remembers from the night of the crash, but not exactly the ones she’s come to know over the past few days. These are somehow more, more vibrant, more tender, more alive.

He coughs a little and pulls his hand away from her to cover his mouth.

Clarke has a thought. Bellamy was in a coma that whole time, his spirit was with her, but he was here. What if he doesn’t remember-

“Clarke?” He asks, in awe.

She grins at him and doesn’t hesitate to do the first thing that comes to her mind. She leans over and brings her lips to his. This is one decision she doesn’t have to agonize over; she just does.

After all, someone once told her it wasn’t really swimming unless she stuck her head underwater. And she's ready to drown in Bellamy Blake.

 


End file.
